Middle School at DCI
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Anonymous
DCI is a public school that must educate everyone and meet kids (all of them) where they are. If they literally can’t engage 1/3 of the students, they need to retrain their teachers. |
Anonymous
| Right, good luck with retraining a gaggle of mostly young charter teachers when they're free to get in a year or two of teaching experience before heading off to much better pay, and working conditions, elsewhere. |
Anonymous
I don’t disagree. But why are you surprised? DCI’s approach (1:1 tech, IB career AND IB diploma track side by side to serve college-bound and non college-bound students equally) was always clearly stated. Just read their charter application and you knew you were getting an urban high school with all the challenges and opportunities that entails. Did you just hear “middle and high school feed” and do no further due diligence? |
Anonymous
NP here, so you’re in favor or high teacher turnover? |
Anonymous
| No, he's in favor of a program that doesn't serve the highest-performing students coming up through the feeders well (particularly the strongest language students). |
Anonymous
If they are ineffective they should leave or be fired. Lack of turnover isn’t necessarily a good thing. |
Anonymous
AP spanish is a joke. SL spanish is no joke. I don’t know about the others, but I knew native speakers who got 6s on SL IB spanish exams. Can we be done about the HL language classes? I’m also more concerned about other issues. |
Anonymous
100% agree PP. And this is more racism from the poster above. How do you know if “they” lack intellectual Curiosity? You can call me a “raise baiting troll” all you want but I call it like I see it. |
Anonymous
I took both exams during the same month, a decade ago. I remember that the level of Spanish knowledge required to score high was similar for both exams, but the emphasis was different. AP emphasized knowledge of Spanish grammar. SL emphasized speaking and listening. I'm not a native speaker but have a good ear and got the top score on both exams (5/5 and 7/7). I got those scores although I didn't have a chance to start studying Spanish until I was a teenager. My IBD advisor suggested that I didn't take HL Spanish, although I was in the HL Spanish class, because she thought I'd score too low, maybe a 3 or 4/7, hurting my IBD points total. I went on to graduate from an Ivy as a Latin Am Studies concentrator. |
Anonymous
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's a pretty good summary of the problems actually. [/quote]
How so? I understand IB is actually great at tracking. Why doesn’t that work at DCI? [/quote] They don’t do it in middle school (same as Deal) . It will happen in high school for 11th and 12th when students choose HL classes (or not). [/quote] Much too little too late! Not clear if DCI will offer HL language classes. They don't have to in order to remain certified as an IBD World School. Neither Banneker nor Eastern does.[/quote] Frankly I'd be more concerned if they didn't offer HL literature, history, science and math classes. [/quote] OK, but not sure how much mileage your student gets from years of immersion language studies when SL (Standard Level) IBD is on a par with AP academically, and kids who start learning Spanish in 7th or 8th grade at Deal routinely score 5/5 on AP Spanish at Wilson.[/quote] AP spanish is a joke. SL spanish is no joke. I don’t know about the others, but I knew native speakers who got 6s on SL IB spanish exams. Can we be done about the HL language classes? I’m also more concerned about other issues. [/quote] I took both exams during the same month, a decade ago. I remember that the level of Spanish knowledge required to score high was similar for both exams, but the emphasis was different. AP emphasized knowledge of Spanish grammar. SL emphasized speaking and listening. I'm not a native speaker but have a good ear and got the top score on both exams (5/5 and 7/7). I got those scores although I didn't have a chance to start studying Spanish until I was a teenager. My IBD advisor suggested that I didn't take HL Spanish, although I was in the HL Spanish class, because she thought I'd score too low, maybe a 3 or 4/7, hurting my IBD points total. I went on to graduate from an Ivy as a Latin Am Studies concentrator. [/quote] What is the point of this boring story? IB exams are worthwhile to get college credit and the diploma. I’d rather my kid get college credit for a good math score and use a 7 on a SL towards an overall score for the IB diploma. Not sure what is confusing about this. I got a 7/7 on my IB Diploma as well. Good for us! Can we talk about DCI now? |
Anonymous
Well maybe you're a little special. Let's hear more about the non-language classes or other issues, can we? |
Anonymous
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People who want to talk about DCI without talking about preparedness in target languages, and level or rigor in language classes, can't see the forest for the trees. Kids coming up through feeders are supposed to be well positioned to ace IB Diploma language exams to help them stand out in college admissions. Language skills, especially in speaking and listening, are supposed to be one of their strong suits relative to the competition, after all those years in 50% of partial immersion! How lame that DCI probably won't even offer HL language classes.
If you want your kid to ace IBD math, middle school at BASIS would obviously be much better prep than the DCI experience. If you want them to ace IB humanities, middle school at Wash Latin, Deal or a private would obviously be much better prep. |
Anonymous
| OR partial immersion. |
Anonymous
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OP, the middle school and high school at DCI improve every year. Parents are largely NOT bailing as the PP suggested. HS retention rates are so far even higher than MS, despite the fact that the leading classes are the ones working through most of the kinks for those that follow.
While that doesn't answer all of your questions, it should tell you that families are feeling comfortable with the leadership and plan for the future, and satisfied with the opportunities provided to their children today. Now that the school has moved into its lovely new campus at WR, people are even more excited and optimistic. Yes, there is some attrition. But it is a low attrition rate compared to other schools. A couple of the 8th graders this year are leaving for Walls, a couple for Private, a couple for Duke Ellington. But the families who are remaining include high income families, families with Wilson in boundary, kids who got into one or more of the magnets, and families who could leave for Maryland suburbs, among others. To address the complaints about "no tracking" - that's really not done very much anywhere in middle school anymore, but DCI does track in math and foreign language, plus it has 'support" or remedial classes that some students have to take in English and Math in addition to their basic classes. So the system is designed to work with everyone. As a parent of a pretty "advanced" student, I've been pleased with the way the school continues to challenge my child, even in "untracked" classes like English Language Arts. For example, there is a lot of writing (essays, book analysis, etc), with grammar and spelling being covered more in support classes for those that need it. While there is a wide range of abilities in that class, there is a fair amount of peer review and editing, which has been beneficial for my child as well as others. In fact, there has been a tremendous amount of writing. In the tracked math and language classes, in the upper level classes, kids really are advanced and have the opportunity to challenge themselves even more. If you got in to DCI, you owe it to yourself and child to check it out, talk (in person preferably) with actual parents and students (rather than listening to repeat anonymous posters), visit info sessions and meet the school leadership. Because if DCI does work out for your child, it's an amazing chance to have an IB diploma path and true commitment to bi-literacy. As far as I know, virtually the only other place you could get that is WIS (assuming that you can get in and want to spend that much on middle school and high school, and you don't mind WIS's lack of socioeconomic diversity compared to a public school). |
Anonymous
I recognize this as that massive DCI hating troll who also hates Yu Ying. If you’re going to hate on the school please articulate WHY. I like the IB curriculum, I’m totally unimpressed with Latin or Basis. Do you not understand how the lottery works? You have to lottery in DCI. You can’t just “decide” to go to Latin or basis for a while (cue laughter from the thousand plus parents on a waitlist) and go to dci for high school. Middle schools seem terrible anywhere, but I wonder if the strong curriculum and cohorts will be more than enough of a reason to stick with DCI. |